Earlier this week Mark S. Luckie from 10,000 Words gave advice to graduating journalism students and suggested 30 things they could do this summer.
The list started like this:
- Start a blog and post at least twice a week
- If you already have a blog, write a post that gets retweeted 20 times
- Shoot 100 amazing photos and post them on Flickr
- Friend at least 50 journalists on Twitter who in turn follow you back
- Become a part of a crowdsourcing project
and ran up to number 30.
I liked his suggestions — a few are ones I’ve told my journalism students to pursue — and shared his post with one of the journalism listservs I’m on.
“You can quibble with the details,” I wrote, “but I generally think this is spot on and will pass it along to my students.”
The first response was positive:
That is spot on and some points we should probably all learn! Thanks for the to-do list!
The next response, not so much.
Before I get into it though I think I can safely say that our mainstream brethren aren’t quite the shining stars we might hope them to be. Off the top of my head I can think of today’s Washington Post pay to play snafu (Charles Kaiser sums up its repercussions nicely); NPR’s banning the word “torture” from its coverage of Bush era interrogations; and Fox’s Glenn Beck continued journey to looneyville when he apparently agreed with a guest that “the only chance we have as a country right now is” for bin Laden to “detonate a major weapon” in the US.
Really?
So, yes, I agree with Luckie that our graduating journalists have some independent training to do. Hopefully they’ll apply it to new, independent news operations that start to show what real journalism can look like.
Slate’s Jack Schafer is right when he writes that digital disruption will improve journalism. We — and our graduates — just need to practice and take advantage of what this technology is providing.
Without further ado, here’s the back and forth.
Wow. Is this what journalism has sunk to? “Start a blog and post at least twice a week.” Is the author taking it on faith that all these new journalism grads just automatically have something to say that is so pressing and relevant they have to broadcast their thoughts twice a week?
Perhaps they do, perhaps they don’t. I know a 2008 grad that got his current “mainstream” gig because he did have something to say, and said it well. Without the blog, the hiring editor never would have come across him.
However, think of a blog simply as a platform. It doesn’t necessarily have to include opinion or “thoughts” as you imply above. I’ve told my students in the past, if you graduate and want to cover City Hall but haven’t been hired to do so, start a blog and start reporting. Get your ass down to City Hall and break news.
You don’t have to wait until Newsday comes calling. Better, do it with a partner and report as fiercely as you can so you make a name for yourself. You’ll eventually get noticed.
That’s what i think of when someone says, start a blog. The blog, as a public platform, lets us pursue what truly interests us if we haven’t been fortunate enough to be hired for the beat we really want. Use it.
And that they’re all such skilled photographers that every one of them can post “100 amazing photos” that other people besides their friends will actually care about?
If you’re not skilled enough to begin with the only way you’re going to get there is to practice. So i tweak the “take a 100 photographs directive” and say, take thousands, but you can only have 100 up on Flickr/your site at any one time. That way, you learn to edit yourself. You learn to develop and eye, you learn a variety of skills, including editorial judgment, that will come in handy.
Or is he/she assuming that it’s OK to produce content for the sake of producing content?
Well, is it not ok? Athletes practice. So too artists and musicians. Should journalists not lift a finger and perfect their writing, shooting, editing, etc. unless they have an actual, honest to goodness signed, sealed and delivered assignment from an editorial desk? I’d rather have that budding journalist do it publicly where he or she can get actual feedback from those who see, hear or read their work.
How else do you propose people get better?
Nowhere in this post is there any mention of actually, say, reporting. Why not instruct new grads to spend time in underrepresented communities and find the stories that mainstream media is missing?
Well, I agree with you there and hopefully my tweaking shows that reporting is part of the process in the recommendations. And yes, go take those pictures and write pieces that aren’t covered in the mainstream media.
We don’t need thousands of new journalists who know how to use Photoshop and Twitter. Any child can do that. We need journalists who actually know how to report and write, and who pay attention.
We do need journalists who know how to report and write, and who pay attention. And we need them to be able to produce that content in and for a medium that most people are now using to get their news. That’s the web. Photoshopping required. Which, apologies to any of my former students on this list, is not something any child can do.
Final thought. The author who posted the original list recommends following 50 journalists on Twitter. I disagree.
Leave the echo chamber and follow 50 people in the beat and subject matter you want to report in and on. Immerse yourselves in the links and knowledge they’re sharing. It will do you well.
Now, she did conclude her rant with, “We need journalists who actually know how to report and write, and who pay attention.”
And this, of course, is absolutely true.
